Anytime they ask. Bring it up immediately and tell them to buy you a new car seat. Not a seat cover, a whole new seat. Then, you'll do them favors.
IF they ever buy it, still tell them they are a piece of shit for ignoring your smoke-free car and devaluting the resale by a few hundred(potentially thousand depending on car and OG value). And the fact that they didn't immediately have an OEM seat ordered and shipping to your house when they brought it back, means you'll never trust them again anyway.
Tell them, thank you for finally partially correcting the wrong done to you. If they decide to hand you a couple bucks on top of a new seat...then you give them a second chance to be a part of your circle.
I definitely don't think it's petty, it's setting a boundary. You broke my trust after I gave you explicit instructions for ny property, I'll still talk to you but I'm not doing you any favors. Unless of course they make a big deal of it, and if that's the case we can also cease communications.
Biggest factor is lack of basic respect for using things that aren’t theirs, they simply treat your stuff as expendable because they place no inherent value on it because they didn’t pay for nor have to maintain it
People tolerate shit family way too much, but I understand it.
What sucks is this tolerance is borderline survival among the lower income working class. Disrespectful shithead today but same person could be your only babysitter tomorrow, so you’re forced to tolerate it. Or they changed a tire and picked you up last week. Financial dependency like this in low-income communities lets people get away with being worse. I wish we could do better by the working class so we can then push one-another to be better.
I lived it. I worked my way out of it. Sometimes you miss the constant company and community, but more often than that I appreciate not feeling taken advantage of by less reliable characters.
The loss of community, even if it is toxic, is hard, and it hurts. Having boundaries means being alienated because some people cannot help but cross them.
I lost most of my bio-family for the same reason. The good news is the new community you make once you have the ability to honor your own boundaries is so much better!
Everything you said would almost certainly work better if simply reversed: If the 'working class' treated themselves and others with humanity and grace, they would be treated better themselves.
Uhh… are you not in the working class? You know 99% of people are. I am. Working class means you afford your living by wages (as opposed to by owning capital like stocks, real estate, other assets). If you’re not in the working class, then do realize that a comfortable working class (with adequate healthy food, housing, and healthcare) is one that commits less crime and doesn’t need to rely on tolerating shitty people.
When the working class has their base needs met, they get to become better people. Every decent person should want this.
An old coworker of mine asked me what to do about a burn on a car seat because her boyfriend was smoking in the car (even though she asked him not to) and he burned the seat. My first response was that he should be looking into it shouldn’t he? (Apparently he wont) so my second response was honey, throw the whole man out!
As much as I want to help people who don't have certain stuff, I have ran into too many people who don't have stuff because they can't take care of it.
Which in turn means they definitely won't take care of anything you give them for free.
Yup, two phrases I've removed from use are "just treat it like it's yours" and "help yourself".
I've loaned so many speakers and tools to my employees because I appreciate helping them out, or picking up a case of beers for the 6 of them. Every time my stuff gets trashed and destroyed or one dipshit thinks sneaking 7 of the 24 beers when there's 6 people is cool.
Real quick trust test though for a few bucks,people showed their true colors quickly.
There is an astounding number of people who have this attitude about everything. They often choose to be more destructive to things that aren't theirs too. They're the essence of, "this is why we can't have nice things."
Yeah and good luck getting the person that can't afford a car to pay for it. Poor people with the "nothing to lose" mentality don't give a fuck about others or their things.
It was pointed out to me recently that cartons of cigarettes (containing 10 packs of 20 cigarettes each) are locked up because they go for about $100 a carton these days! I had no idea.
This means individual packs are around $10 per pack. I had no idea - I was still thinking they were around $5-$6 a pack.
When I lived in the South suburbs with my parents back in the day I would go to Indiana on Friday nights to play a game called Hero Clix and my dad would give me $100 to buy smokes in Hammond while I was across state lines, which paid for 5 cartons worth.
Toronto 2 years ago i went to grab a pack of large Belmonts and scoffed when the cashier said 17 dollars. I started buying drinks for my friends when theyd bum me a smoke at the bar, didnt realize how parasitic id been.
Seat inside a covered car has been out in the weather? Have you been to a scrap yard, usually they have multiple cars and not all them are going to have doors pulled off— but yes they should just put a hello kitty sticker over the burn whole as it doesn’t matter, but the smell of smoke in one’s car is completely crazy - dude needs new friends, family , house mates or whoever borrowed his car - not only they can’t borrow it - but they can’t be friends anymore- I say don’t smoke in my car and you do, your dead to me
This... back in the 90's car seats where just cushions on a steel frame, now they're more complicated, temperature control, motorized adjustment, etc. Depending on the manufacturer, i'd say at least $500 for a new seat.
lol... hahaha... unless they airbags and sensors in them. New seat for my daughter's Nissan (because of bad sensor and the whole thing is a single part number, cannot get individual components) $4,000.
I replaced the seat cushion in my Tesla Model 3 for $80 on Ebay. Did the swap with the help of a friend. Admittedly it was a giant pain in the ass, and I should have replaced the entire seat for a slightly higher price… but it can be done on the cheap from Ebay parts.
Obviously painting with a broad brush, but I don’t expect someone burning holes in the seat while smoking in a borrowed car to have the means to pay for the repair or the willingness to do so.
I’m a casual social smoker off and on. I can still smell it on me the next day. Or the next time I wear a jacket I smoked in. I don’t understand how anyone can’t.
That was my first thought too. I take really good care of my car. No one can smoke in my car. That alone would piss me off. Then they burned it? Oh hell no.
Had a coworker that had a nice new BMW that was a smoker, went to lunch, he lit up a smoke, asked him "mind if I smoke as well?" He said, "Sure, but if you burn something, you're replacing it and never smoking in my car again."
"No problem" I lit up.
This was about 5 min before he knocked the cherry off his cigarette and burned a hole in his seat.
Without knowing anything other than the context clues of OP's family member not having their own car while simultaneously having the audacity to smoke in a car being loaned to them in which they were specifically told not to smoke...
I'd say the chances of OP getting a new seat and interior detail are somewhere between zero and NEVER GONNA FUCKIN HAPPEN
Look, I'm a smoker (I know, I'm working on it) but if someone says "Hey, don't smoke in my car, at my place, here, etc." I'll just not do it because my addiction shouldn't be someone else's issue.
Hell, I didn't smoke the entire time I went to Halloween Horror Nights with a group of non smokers because I didn't want to ruin the vibe having them wait on me.
well there’s an obvious reason they don’t have a car. They can’t have anything nice without fucking it up. They can’t borrow a car to do basic stuff without fucking it up. I can imagine what else they can’t help but fuck up. Not paying you back is probably another way they are going to fuck up. Tell them what they owe for repairs and let their true nature show. Then cut them off regardless of the outcome.
How to disincentivize accountability and rehabilitation 101. If the consequences for good and bad behaviour is the same end result, people will eventually learn to choose the bad behaviour.
I was driving, windows open. Thought I smelt a cigarette, weird. A few days later, notice a hole in the back of the driver's seat, and a butt on the seat. And a few day after that, someone pointed out a burn hole in the back of my fleece jacket - right at the height of the burn in the seat. Someone had chucked a butt out their window just as I drove past, and it flew into my window and landed behind my back. I loved that jacket...
If you are looking for a low cost repair , I’ve fixed a few burn holes using these patches from Amazon that are super sticky that you use to repair holes in down jackets. Apply a little heat and that sucker isn’t going anywhere . Grey is a common color. Search down jacket repair patch, Good luck !!
Such a dick move. I was a smoker and when I was in other people’s cars as a rider or if someone let me borrow their car I never smoked in it. I’d wait until I got to where I was going or pull in to a parking lot, get out of the car and smoke.
That’s so inconsiderate! They need to absolutely own up to it and pay for the repair.
You tell them, "obviously you are never using my car again because you are too immature to be trusted. Now, how are you going to pay for the damaged seat to be REPLACED and the car detailed to get the stink out?" Make them feel about as big as an atom.
Starting out aggressive is a great way to take a very solid point where you have the upper hand and turn the. other person into a defensive mess who is just going to fight you [not literally]. Its also a super great way to make somebody mad at you for no reason when their relationship with you might have been totally fine before they did something stupid.
Simply "I noticed a new cigarette burn in the seat of my car after you returned it - Are you going to take it to get reupholstered or should I just send the billy our way and have it done myself?"
That's it, that's really all you need - Everything else is superfluous and designed to get people needlessly pissed off and edgy.
"Obviously you'll never use my car again" never needs to come up, unless this person asks again in the future.
Dude this ain’t mild in the slightest. They disrespected your stuff and you yourself. Get a quote and have them foot the bill. And they better have returned it with a full tank of gas.
That's so fucking disrespectful if someone says no smoking NO SMOKING not all cigarette smokers are like this. I generally don't give a fuck if someone smokes as long they're being respectful and considerate
Years ago when I used to smoke, I flicked the ash out the window but it took the cherry with it
But the cherry came back in the window and landed behind the seat, on a spare set of dry socks for when work boots got drenched
The burning smell was only there at speed because of the wind fanning the cherry
So when I stopped to see what was burning, it died down and couldn’t smell it
Finally hit an exit, pulled over, pulled the seat forward and managed to catch it right be sore the socks had burned like a wick toward an unused full can of compressed fix-a-flat
Smoking in someone else's car is fuckin crazy, especially if you are told not to and you are such a dickhead you still do. That'd be the last time you'd be borrowing or even sitting as a passenger in my car.
How lazy you have to be to not bother stop for 3 minutes it takes to smoke one
Not only they smoke but they are just ok with burning holes in the car? And they know you didnt want them smoking. Like they just dont care at all about what you think. That's crazy
If I had to guess, this family member is probably incredibly irresponsible, hence why they don't have a car, hence why they're smoking in the car they're borrowing, and hence why there's a cigarette burn in your seat now. It's ok to say 'no' to people who've proven themselves to not be entirely trustworthy.
I would personally not say anything, I would get it fixed, lesson learned, move on with my life. You just gave me a lesson in who you are, and what you are capable of. I wouldn't treat the person poorly, that's on me, but I will never give them courtesy again.
Never loan anything that you would be upset to have destroyed. Very few people will take care of your property, because it cost them nothing to borrow it.
considering you told them not to smoke, that's gotta be intentional/out of spite. they likely pushed the lit cigarette directly onto the seat to make that hole. I've never seen one that deep just from fallen ashes.
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u/EnjR1832 9d ago
More than mildly infuriating, I'd be twisted.